Mario Lemieux's overall shot

Infinite Vision*

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Mario appeared to see the whole ice simultaneously but uniquely able to catch goalies off balance or expose a small opening when he really had no business shooting. It wasn't just accuracy, it's the fact that goalies simply weren't ready for a shot.

Exactly. He could slow things down, or speed things up just at the right time, and he knew how goalies would react and simply found the opening.

Mario couldn't shoot hard enough, well enough to outright beat a goalie from a distance. He never had a feared shot like that. Brett Hull, Ovechkin, Stamkos, Kovalev, Mogilny, Iginla, Jagr (I'm sure many others I've missed) - these guys could rocket one past a goalie even when they are ready and in position.

Sakic, Semin, and Kovalchuk come to mind. But to be fair, they've all had years of experience with composite sticks, this helps a ton with velocity of shots, especially wristshots.

Mario really didn't play that way or shoot like that. He had no curve on his stick and I NEVER recall him winding up a laser wrist shot to score a goal. He rarely scored on 1-timers on the PP (well, not rare, but certainly not for many of his goals) - yet he seemed to score a lot of ugly goals, a lot of pretty goals, a lot of seemingly effortless flick-shots from in-close. He was able to stick-handle and use his body to get close and then was deadly in-tight.

There's no talent that comes close to that. I doubt we'll ever see a player like that again but if he comes along, it'll be something truly remarkable.

His curves were good enough, nothing close to illegal though. I would say he did score quite a few one timers on the PP, and he was the greatest powerplay scorer of all time. He also scored a lot of being in the right place at the right time type of goals, he was almost like a combination of Jagr and Gretzky... as scary as that sounds that's what I percieve him as.


I got to see him a lot in Buffalo and in Toronto - what a talent. He looked like he was hardly trying much of the time (not unlike Kovalev), but when he turned it on he was amazing to watch. Completely explosive acceleration but a rocket shot as well.

Not sure why there isn't much you-tubing of this guy - especially compared to Schremp and Omark :sarcasm:

Completely agree, didn't see a whole lot of him in Buffalo, but enough to realize how special of a talent he was. His 76 goals in 77 games pretty much spoke for itself. Moved to the GTA a few years before he was traded to the Leafs, and I had the pleasure of watching his skill put on display many times. Sundin was the leader of that team, but when Mogilny wanted to be, he was the best player on that team hands down. His work ethic, hockey sense, and consistency were a notch above Kovalev IMO, and his speed was like Bure and Fedorov. I hope someone creates a compilation of him because it would be exciting to see for all of us and especially those who never had the pleasure of watching him.
 
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vadim sharifijanov

Registered User
Oct 10, 2007
28,584
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Completely agree, didn't see a whole lot of him in Buffalo, but enough to realize how special of a talent he was. His 76 goals in 77 games pretty much spoke for itself. Moved to the GTA a few years before he was traded to the Leafs, and I had the pleasure of watching his skill put on display many times. Sundin was the leader of that team, but when Mogilny wanted to be, he was the best player on that team hands down. His work ethic, hockey sense, and consistency were a notch above Kovalev IMO, and his speed was like Bure and Fedorov. I hope someone creates a compilation of him because it would be exciting to see for all of us and especially those who never had the pleasure of watching him.

i followed mogilny a bit when he was with buffalo, but i mostly saw his vancouver years. re: that other thread about the best "pure" goal scorers, mogilny was the best canuck i ever saw. better than bure and naslund, which is obviously very high company. both guys were lights out shooters. but other than mario, i don't think i've seen a better wrist shot than mogilny (i did not see bossy in his prime). that includes joe sakic, by the way, who i saw a lot of after the AVs moved into the NW conference.

the way mogilny could shoot mid-stride was almost unfair for goalies. not only was it as hard and accurate as anyone in the league, you also never knew when he was going to release it. and he could do it while going top speed. gaborik today has a bit of that in him, but mogilny was in a whole other class.

my memories of mogilny on the leafs was that he not only could have been (and often was) their best offensive player. he also if he wanted to could have been their best defensive forward. there were stretches when his mind was in the game where he was carrying the team at both ends. he saw the ice so well and at that point he still had enough wheels to do almost anything he wanted.
 

Infinite Vision*

Guest
i followed mogilny a bit when he was with buffalo, but i mostly saw his vancouver years. re: that other thread about the best "pure" goal scorers, mogilny was the best canuck i ever saw. better than bure and naslund, which is obviously very high company. both guys were lights out shooters. but other than mario, i don't think i've seen a better wrist shot than mogilny (i did not see bossy in his prime). that includes joe sakic, by the way, who i saw a lot of after the AVs moved into the NW conference.

the way mogilny could shoot mid-stride was almost unfair for goalies. not only was it as hard and accurate as anyone in the league, you also never knew when he was going to release it. and he could do it while going top speed. gaborik today has a bit of that in him, but mogilny was in a whole other class.

my memories of mogilny on the leafs was that he not only could have been (and often was) their best offensive player. he also if he wanted to could have been their best defensive forward. there were stretches when his mind was in the game where he was carrying the team at both ends. he saw the ice so well and at that point he still had enough wheels to do almost anything he wanted.

That's mostly what I remember from watching him as well, he could rip a wrister off his wrong foot, his speed and acceleration were insane... it's too bad for his injuries that happened fairly early in his career, likewise with many other highly skilled players unfortunately.

His hockey sense and playmaking abilities did seem to be noticeably better than Bure's, and like you said he could play amazing defense when he wanted to. Kind of like Malkin today, he's known as a lazy defensive player and floater, but I've seen him turn it on and dominate defensively, he has the defensive skills, the speed and the hockey sense to do so.

I've found three short clips of Mogilny in pretty bad quality, a few of them may need to be watched several times over to really see exactly what made the plays so impressive (I know this is off topic), but here they are.









All three of those goals are disgusting. Unreal speed and skill.
 

Pantokrator

Who's the clown?
Jan 27, 2004
6,147
1,311
Semmes, Alabama
very powerful, and extremely deceptive. Most accurate shot in history. This was helped by the feints he made before he shot. I swear he was the best on breakaways, EVER.
This is backed up statistically, look at the all time shooting percentage leaders. The top is dominated by 80s players, most of them merely above average opportunists who, overall, didn't shoot very much, and guys with shorter careers. Lemieux played until 2006, and is the only player who both took a ton of shots, and scored on a high percentage of them.

I think you are right. He would make goalies look like complete fools; and he did it looking like he was moving in slow motion.
 

lextune

I'm too old for this.
Jun 9, 2008
11,436
2,365
New Hampshire
I think you are right. He would make goalies look like complete fools; and he did it looking like he was moving in slow motion.

I don't see how there is even a close second to Mario on breakaways.

There is a DVD called, "Mario Lemieux: The Best Ever", that has highlights of literally dozens of Mario breakaway goals. It is worth hunting down.

I suffered through them back in the day and still love watching the DVD, lol.

EDIT:

Just googled it and it turns out someone uploaded the entire DVD to youtube :)

 

Big Phil

Registered User
Nov 2, 2003
31,703
4,144
Someone mentioned Mario on breakaways. Yes he was #1, and still is to this day. I believe he was 6/8 on penalty shots in his career and a penalty shot has a lower percentage than a breakaway since the goalie isn't caught off guard.

My memories of Mario are so grand but his shot had so many great qualities. You don't often say a player has patience with his shot but Mario did. How many times did we see him come on a clean break like in slow motion only to give the goalie two options. He was either going to wait until the goalie blinked (a la Casey in the 1991 final) or let him flinch ever so slightly to open up room for the top corner. It is almost as if Mario would toy with the goalie on a breakaway. He gave him two options and both resulted in goals.

He did this with the best. I don't have the stats but Mario always seemed to get the best of Hasek. Remember the 1987 Canada Cup? Well that Canada/Russia series was close to not happening. Canada was losing 2-0 in that semi final game against the Czechs. Mario came in on a partial break against Hasek and I swear you couldn't have fit a penny past the point where he shot but it ended up over Hasek's shoulder under the bar right in the top corner. Hasek tried to catch it with his glove and did a double take after the goal went in checking his glove.

In the 2002 Olympics Mario scored two goals against Hasek. The first one was a partial break from the off-wing. It was typical Mario. He was coasting down the left wing with the defenseman about to give him some pressure and Mario was just waiting for Hasek to flinch. Then at the last second he put it in between his legs. The next period he is on a two-on-one with Kariya. Hasek looked terrible on this one, almost as if he gave up on it because he is so deep in the net that when Mario shoots it goes into his glove and he rolls into the net with it. Mario is the only player in NHL history that I have ever seen make Hasek look bad.

Oh and his shot? Hard, deceptive, accurate, accurate, accurate. Soft wrists but still hard shot. Quick release. Great bad angle goal scorer too. It's almost as if he could put the puck where he wanted to
 

VMBM

And it didn't even bring me down
Sep 24, 2008
3,797
754
Helsinki, Finland
I don't see how there is even a close second to Mario on breakaways.

Um, Sergei Makarov? I don't know how he was when he played in the NHL past his prime, but when he played for Soviet Union, I don't think I've ever seen him failing to score while on a [clear] breakaway, including vs. Canada.

Examples:

at 2:00


at 17:45
 

Infinite Vision*

Guest
I don't see how there is even a close second to Mario on breakaways.

There is a DVD called, "Mario Lemieux: The Best Ever", that has highlights of literally dozens of Mario breakaway goals. It is worth hunting down.

I suffered through them back in the day and still love watching the DVD, lol.

EDIT:

Just googled it and it turns out someone uploaded the entire DVD to youtube :)



I highly recommend everyone on these boards to watch that full video. It's actual proof he was the best goal scorer ever, if not player. Gave me chills watching it. Thanks a bunch for posting that.
 

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